The Mechanic of Ottery
by ShaiGar
Summary: An electrical apprentice is ROB'd into the world of Harry Potter as an NPC auto-mechanic. Self Insert from character sheet.


This is not my bed.

Okay.

While not a usual circumstance, waking up in an unknown bed isn't exactly rare.

Nor is waking up in an unknown bed without memory of how I got here rare.

Sadly, from a quick feel of the mattress where I'm laying and beside me, it feels like I wasn't accompanied, and that's more common than I'll ever admit to. A quick scan of the room shows that it's not personalised in any way, though it looks pretty comfortable. A bed and breakfast then. It's not Tara House, Bridgewater, or the Grungle Downs. Somewhere new. Fuck it, it was comfortable, so I went back to sleep.

 **..TMoO..**

Normally by now my dog has jumped into bed and crawled under the sheets. That's definitely the thing I miss most when I sleep away from home. What I do like though, is the chance to explore somewhere new.

So, up and at em it is.

The shower looked reasonable, and turned on when I stepped in. Clearly I booked somewhere with hidden tech. Neat.

And then it hits. A complete download of skills and memories of a life I've never lived, and one that's so completely impossible to have lived that I'm pretty certain that my perchant for escapist fantasy fanfiction has combined with whatever drugs I must have taken last night, and resulted in a breakdown. Fantastic.

If you're insane, how do you know you're insane? If you're seeing hallucinations, how do you know they're not real? I've still never tried LSD, so I can't say I've got anything to compare it to, and I've always worried that the green light I'm driving through is actually red and I'm just not seeing the cars.

And let the panic, the fear, the hope, and all the other emotions go into the flame.

 _Become the void._

Right now, I'm in a shower. It's nice and hot. The bathroom looks like a high quality bathroom made in the 1920's. There's nothing magic about it at all, except for the lack of tap handles. I wondered for a moment how the water got turned on and off, and the shower stopped.

Neat.

Dear Penthouse,

I never believed any of the stories in your magazine, until it happened to me. Or is that spacebattles? Fuck it, ROB seemed to think it'd be funny to take my HP tabletop non player character and dump me into the story. I'd only really made the character so that I could hang out while the others gamed, occasionally make a few jokes, and feed people.

I like feeding people. I didn't even think Kevin would let me play him, but I had to ask, because as Charlie Sheen probably said, you miss your chance with every girl you don't make a play for.

Of course, I also found the idea of ROB a ludicrous little deus ex machina that helpfully let the authors just skip right past making a plausible reason for putting a self insert into a fantasy world. A thorough inspection in the shower and bathroom mirror assures me I'm in the same body I was in before appearing in this world.

Fuck it. As long as I don't shoot spells at people, I may as well roll with it.

 **..TMoO..**

Back in the the bedroom there's a folded green hawaiian print robe on the floor, a pair of black hipster briefs and a pair of purple sandshoes, that meets the expectations of the memories of Richard Hastings. Reaching blindly to the chest of drawers results in my 34 centimetre Jarrah and Dragon heartstring wand.

Okay.

My memories aren't just a flight of fancy backed up by my imaginings while develping an NPC to screw with Kevins campaign. I am a thirty three year old master enchanter and auto-mechanic from Magical Australia, in the Harry Potter world.

Things could be better, but things could also be a hell of a lot worse.

In many ways I'm fucking lucky that the random omnipotent bastard saw fit to put me in Rowlings world. I'd been working on a video game fic for A Song of Ice and Fire, as a co-op. Now, it's an interesting premise, but at least 90's England has flushing toilets, the internet, pizza, and condoms. Never overestimate the joys of pissing without a burning urethrae.

The first things I'd have to do in that world would be making toilet paper and flushing toilets. I can live without a great many luxuries, and will happily camp with the bare basics, but I will not do without three ply. Fly wheels? Fuck that shit. I was a tech-support, karaoke geek doing an electrotechnology apprenticeship. I can make electrical motors and wire up houses if instructed, but developing an infrastructure for the components needed was beyond me. Let alone doing all that courtesy crap, I could see myself being killed pretty quickly the first time I called someone a cunt..

But, Harry Potter huh? As a Wizard...

 **No.**

As a Wizard auto-mechanic with a fully fleshed out backstory.

I'll be a fucking god.

 **..TMoO..**

Sitting down at the bar was an unearthly feeling.

This feeling was sort of like being on ecstasy and weed. No. It was exactly like being on both ecstasy, dextroamphetamine, and weed. My mind was racing, throbbing, my body floating in a cloud, and I just wanted to hug everyone because I was so happy that I wanted to dance.

I know this place. I must have watched that scene where Harry shakes everyone's hand in the Leaky Cauldron near on half a hundred times, and if it wasn't that, it was probably close to eight.

Then he comes out. The original Tom the Barman, not that hunch backed freak, thrown in for a retards sense of humour from the third movie. "Morning Mister Hastings, breakfast?"

"Aye, full English thanks." This is awesome. "I've got to head into the Ministry today and get a fair bit of paperwork done. Better not face it entirely sober. Can you do up a car bomb?"

"Right you are, I'll go let the kitchen know and be right out with it."

"Ta mate, you've got the prophet here?"

"Should be a couple of copies around the place. You came down a bit late if you wanted to do the crossword in any of them."

They have the crossword in the paper? Shit, some things have clearly been brought in by the muggles. "No worries, just after something to read with my eggs."

I popped over to where he pointed and grabbed a paper. First and most importantly, excellent.

Today was Wednesday, May 4th, 1994.

The front page was full of news about the Quidditch World Cup, and a potions accident in Carkitt Market from a too-thin cauldron. It looks like Sirius Black is still on the run, and nothing's in the paper about the Defence professor being outed as a werewolf. The paper feels real, and I can smell the ink when I lift it to my face. Besides the moving pictures and the retarded typography, the Daily Prophet doesn't have much going for it in todays paper. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and assume that there's more to it on a day to day basis. I've never really been a newspaper person.

Tom comes out and cheerfully informs me that the breakfast should be done in a few minutes, and pours me a coffee, and proceeds to pour a generous holy fuck load of whiskey in there. Okay. I'll be coming here regularly then. It's when he puts the coffee down in front of me that I notice it. My arse is really feeling the chair, the porcelain mug feels real under my fingers, and the coffee smells great, and real, if a little off from the whiskey. I think this is enough proof that it's not a dream, and if I'm insane, I'm getting enough tactile feedback to no longer question it.

Most people might be upset to be separated from their friends and loved ones, but I've read enough self insert fics on Spacebattles and to appreciate that even if I'm here, there's also a reasonable chance that I'm also in the world I was born in. That one version of me has to deal with unemployment, a Liberal government, and Trump taking power next year. Heh. Sucker. Where I get to hang out with characters I enjoyed reading about, and broken as fuck magic powers. For all that I love my family, I've never really communicated with them when I haven't needed to, or out of a sense of duty, so being separated from them isn't much of an issue. I'll deal with it when it becomes such.

Whatever was in that coffee was outstanding. I don't even mind that I'll have to deal with Beaurocrats today. Then Tom brings out breakfast and leaves me alone to think.

When I created Richard Hastings, it was so Arthur Weasley could buy a second hand car from a Wizard, and the players could interact with an NPC who had a little more to do or say than the DM wanted. Also, I wasn't going to put on a generic English accent, let alone a devonshire one, no matter how hot the women sounded. So, I started working on a backstory as an Australian auto-mechanic, and Kevin let me use the character creator. Heh. A few hours later I'd written up a Master Enchanter from Freo, who moved over to the UK to be closer to larger population centres, better infrastructure, and more variety in cars.

He was going to be a hard working, courageous, moral man. Then I was going to move on to a different NPC.

That was before ROB stuck me in this world.

The way I carry myself has increased a little. My general constitution has increased a little. My strength and eyesight have decreased a little. My dexterity's gone up a whole bunch, and my brain is connecting dots far quicker than I've ever done before, but, I'm still in my same old body. Irregardless of the new memories, skills, and power, I'm the same old person I've always been.

My motives are the same, my standards are the same, and my tastes are the same.

Having a fully fleshed out backstory means most of my support networks are already in place. Being an NPC means I don't need to face King Snake and his totally awesome Kobra Kultists.

Note to self. Never call Voldemort, King Snake, Tom, Tommy, Moldywarts, or anything out loud, that, if it gets back to him, could conceivably have him want to kill me. I'm egotistical, not stupid with a massive death wish.

Fear of the name might increase fear of the thing, or however that went, but I'm already plenty scared of someone who'd willingly slaughter wholesale without any emotion. I can see myself killing people with magic if I'm enraged and there are no witnesses. Hell, Richard Hastings has already done that. But kill without emotion? That takes a psychopath or seriously dehumanising training, and a powerful as fuck magic enhanced psychopath is proper scary.

With the skills I wrote out, I'd make an excellent trainer for the Griffindors, an outstanding quartermaster for the Order, and someone who could completely avoid the entire fuck up that the poms have piled on themselves.

But that's not who I am. I'm a little too egotistical for that sort of approach.

ROB might have thrown me into the world with the abilities, knowledge, and life of Hastings, but he didn't throw me in with the entire backstory complete. I'm actually going to have to do work. I might not be a main character in the life of Harry Potter, but fuck that, I'm the main character in my own life. So if I was going to make the best of this situation, I was going to have to set myself up good and proper.

 **..TMoO..**

Which is how I found myself down in Level five of the Ministry of Magic, waiting for an appointment with the Department of International Magical Co-operation.

Waiting.

There are ups and downs of an insular society whose fashion doesn't seem to draw anything from the Muggle world, and that encourages robes for everyday wear. On the plus side, beyond a few sideways glances, no-one's said anything about my Hawaiian print robes and purple sand shoes. The down side is of course, that I can't fully appreciate how stacked the secretary is in her formless robes.

That said, I also don't need to wear pants or a shirt. So, really, I have no cause for complaint.

More waiting.

I would leave and come back in five minutes, but I fucking know that the moment I walk out that door, someone's going to come in here looking for me, and having not found me, cancel the appointment.

Even more waiting.

If I didn't know that they're busy trying to organise both the World Cup and the Triwizard Tournment, I'd probably be pissed off. This is taking longer than anything I've ever waited for a federal department in Australia. Even if the British didn't invent Bureaucracy, they sure as fuck perfected it.

The secretary turns to me with a smile and says, "I expect he won't be too much longer, we weren't expecting to be so short staffed today."

"No worries love, I know what it's like. Sometimes these things just happen." I reply, as charmingly as I can, hamming up the accent for the local. Fucking know what it's like wanting to burn this entire corrupt shithole to fucking cinders.

When ROB threw me in this body, and tweaked my mind to accommodate for the extreme intelligence and wisdom on the character sheet, one thing he certainly didn't improve was my patience.

Still even more waiting.

It's been almost four minutes since I got here.

When the assistant comes to collect me, I can feel myself getting to the point where I want to throw the moron standing still on the escalator, off of it. Woosah.

A young man about twenty five years old, with a drab grey and blue robe and a gormless look on his face had stepped out into the waiting room. "Mr Hastings?"

Fucking finally, "Uh, yes?" His face lights up reminiscent of a Labrador puppy you've just told is a good boy.

"Ah, you're finally here. I'm Callum Parkes. Welcome to Britain." Great. A scouser.

"Thank you, lovely to be here. I've only really seen the Leaky Cauldron, but it's not a bad pub." And boy did I geek out when I realised precisely where I was.

Callum pauses for a moment, and takes a long look at my face. He's not bad looking, but I hope to fuck he's not interested. "Right, you were there last night for the US-Australia game." Thank fuck, almost masculine enough, but that voice would drive me up the wall.

"I – was? I don't really remember it."

He laughs. "Bit of a shame, you punched Dougie Lufkin over by the bar. I'd have wanted to remember that."

"Ohh, uh, that won't hinder this application process will it?" Fuck. I've only been here from this morning and ROB's already fucking adding in conflict.

"Not hardly, no. I'll be pushing it through immediately. The Aurors didn't seem too inclined to investigate either." At my worried, questioning glance, he continued "It was a bit of a free for all, and Lufkin was stupid enough to punch one of the Auror Cadets just before you hit him."

"Cool."

Right, well, ROB, I thought you'd given me unnecessary drama just for the sake of creating conflict in the story. That's pretty much the exact opposite of what I want. Wish fulfilment stories are pretty much garbage. The best stories are when the protagonist overcomes great obstacles with wit, few resources, and takes physical and emotional losses along the way. Needless to say, I didn't want any of that bullshit. I'd much rather live in a garbage wish fulfilment story for as long as Rob was keeping me in this universe. Eh, shit in one hand wish in the other.

"Okay, so you've got here that you've a Muggle British Passport," he continues cheerfully "really all you're going to have to worry about your ICW education transcripts, and buying a license for your business." With that he's handing over the documents I came here to get.

Without the ability to put anti-apparition jinxes around the entire countries border, and therefore fuck themselves when it comes to travelling, there's really no way to keep Wizards in or out any one country. Therefore all the national governments seem to care about is enforcing the laws in their area, licensing the businesses that Wizards or Witches run, so they can fund the services utilities they provide.

And, since I've already got a muggle passport courtesy of my dad being born here, I don't need to register my wand. The DMLE will already have a copy of its records through the ICW.

It's apparently a much easier system than the years of muggle bureaucratic bullshit I've had to deal with before. All Hastings had to do in Australia was go to their Councils ICW department and get them to confirm the Australasian School of Magic transcripts, and send them to their sister department in London.

I suppose it's one benefit of combining magic with a low population.

"Right, well, ta mate. I'll go get this shit sorted then."

..TMoO..


End file.
